Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (68 page)

Why?

She had been astonished by them when she had first noticed them, but now she was merely curious. She was curious about a lot of things regarding the man stood before her, silently watching her, his chest rising and falling at a steady pace.

That curiosity only grew as she stepped around him and caught sight of his back.

Her eyes darted over the multitude of long silvery streaks on his back and the two thick ridges of scar tissue that ran vertically down his shoulder blades in line with his spine, each around twelve inches long

“Good God, what happened to you?” she whispered.

Lucifer snarled at her.

Really snarled.

Like an animal.

She lifted her head and caught a flash of him in the mirror before he shifted his face away from her.

Her mouth turned dry.

She hadn’t slept in hours. That was the only reason she had seen red eyes in that mirror. She was imagining things now. He couldn’t possibly have red eyes.

He whirled to face her, his eyes closed and head tilted downwards, and barked out, “I can wash my own damned back.”

Nina flinched away from him and then rallied, setting her jaw and glaring at him. Someone had done something terrible to him, had put him through living Hell by the looks of his back, but that was no reason for him to snap at her. She sighed as the part of her that cared for him, that felt they were kindred spirits, whispered that she would have lashed out too if the scars she carried on her heart were visible on her skin and he had seen them. She knew he felt more vulnerable than ever, and she needed him to know that she wasn’t going to take advantage of that. She wouldn’t judge him or probe into what had happened to him.

She wouldn’t push him.

She would take care of him, would tend to him until he realised that she didn’t think those marks on his back made him weak.

They made him a survivor, like her.

They made him strong.

“I’ll wash it for you, Lucifer. I won’t ask any more questions about it or you. It just took me by surprise.” Because the rest of him was perfect. Not a scar marring his pale skin.

Someone had gone to war on his back though.

She glanced in the mirror, drawn to looking at it, filled with a pressing need to see the worst of the two scars again—the ones that formed matching lines over his shoulders.

When he didn’t move, she whispered, “Lucifer?”

The muscles in his jaw popped, his lips compressing into a thin line, and his nose wrinkled with his frown. Her eyes flitted over his face and then down to his hands as he clenched his fists and his arms trembled at his sides. Whatever he was thinking, she wanted him to stop, because it was clearly hurting him.

Was he remembering what had happened to him?

Her heart kicked in her chest at the thought he might be.

“Lucifer,” she softly murmured, set the sponge down on the black vanity unit and cupped both of his cheeks. She tilted his head up. “Look at me, Lucifer.”

His eyes slowly opened and hers widened.

A corona of red edged his golden irises.

“I won’t ask. I promise. I just want to take care of you.”

He swallowed hard and looked away from her, off to his right and the open door there. A bolt of fear shot through her, panic that he might leave. She held his cheeks more firmly, hoping to bring him back to her, because she didn’t want him to walk out of that door.

She didn’t want to be left alone, wondering what he was doing, knowing that he would be feeling lonely too.

“Please, Lucifer. Let me take care of you.”

His eyes shifted back to meet hers and the red was gone, but she knew she hadn’t imagined it. There was something about this man, something incredible. Unique. Powerful. During the time he had been away from her, she had thought about everything he had done for her and revealed to her. She had thought him some sort of mage.

Now she felt certain he was more than that.

She just didn’t know what.

But she wanted to know.

If she asked, would he tell her?

The soft imploring edge to his steady gaze asked her to hold true to what she had said and not question him. She would do that for him, but she couldn’t promise that she would be able to hold her tongue forever.

She needed to know more about him.

Because she was falling in love with him.

Lucifer stared down into Nina’s eyes, a rush of emotions threatening to sweep him away and wash away some of the darkness in his heart at the same time. They poured through him, too strong for him to handle even as he braced himself and tried to master them. No matter what he did, they refused to fade while he was looking into Nina’s soft gaze, seeing a wealth of warmth and tenderness in her eyes that he didn’t deserve.

If she knew how he came to have the scars on his back, would she look at him with so much compassion in her eyes?

He wasn’t a fool, and he wouldn’t allow his emerging emotions to make him one. He knew that he had done unforgivable things.

Did
unforgivable things.

No mortal could comprehend what he was, who he was, and the things that he did as part of his duty. Nina would never understand the path he had trod, sometimes because of blind faith and sometimes by his own choosing. She would never understand him, no matter how much he desired that.

Her peridot eyes shifted slightly, veering right towards his shoulder, and he could easily read her desire to see his back again.

He had kept it hidden for centuries.

None of his men had ever seen it.

None of his lovers.

He had never been naked before anyone.

He had been careful to make sure it never happened, always remaining in his opened shirt and trousers whenever he took a lover.

He had thought he had done it to keep them from seeing the evidence of his sins, the marks that fuelled him and kept him walking the dark path towards vengeance. He had thought he had done it to keep things simple, to stop whoever he was fucking from opening their mouths to ask about the scars.

He had thought wrong.

He turned his cheek to Nina but she refused to surrender, keeping her palms against his face, her warm touch giving him a sliver of comfort that countered the crushing weight of pain as he realised the real reason he had been careful to hide the scars from everyone.

He was ashamed of them.

They were a living reminder of the sins he had committed, the suffering he had caused and had endured. They were a reminder of the atrocities that had befallen him at the hands of demons.

They weren’t a sign of strength.

They were a reminder of weakness.

And they made him feel that weakness right down to his soul.

They made him feel vulnerable.

And he hated it.

He curled his fingers back into fists at his sides, unable to bring himself to look at Nina or answer her plea. He wasn’t sure how to process what she had said or what she was asking of him.

He wasn’t sure he could ever allow someone to take care of him.

He was vile.

As wretched as they came.

He had faltered on the path he had vowed to walk, a path that may have led to his redemption if only he had been strong enough to keep inching forwards up the impossible incline rather than taking one of the many paths that seemed to have run downhill.

One of the many easy routes.

He hadn’t been strong enough.

He was weak.

He had been tested, put through trial after trial, and he had failed.

Lucifer closed his eyes and swallowed hard, the pain in his heart making it impossible to breathe as he thought about how differently things might have been. The possibility that he might have been able to redeem himself and return to Heaven still haunted him. It never relented. It was forever there in the back of his mind, deep in his heart, burning in his blackened soul.

His knees gave out and hit the black tiles hard, his breath leaving him in a rush. He didn’t feel the pain of his bones striking the floor. He couldn’t feel anything over the agony tearing his heart to pieces and devouring his soul.

“Lucifer.” Her voice was light in the darkness.

Warmth in the cold.

It curled around him and he foolishly clung to it as he shook, his strength flooding from him. Pathetic. He barked a mirthless laugh, one of self-reproach. Where was the proud King of Hell now?

Where was the male who had vowed to make everyone pay for what had happened to him, who had sat on his throne and ordered the deaths of thousands, who tormented and destroyed the souls of the sinful?

He pressed his left hand to his chest and clawed at it, feeling as if his own soul was the one being destroyed now.

He snarled an oath in the demon tongue, cursing the feelings that Erin had reawakened and Nina had restored to full strength.

He couldn’t live with this heaviness on his chest, this crushing pressure of feeling the weight of his sins again.

“Lucifer?” Nina’s soft fingers danced across his cheeks, her voice offering him comfort that made him want to reach out and pull her into his arms, to forget his pain by losing himself in her.

One hand lowered, coming to rest over the one he held pressed against his chest. Her fingers slipped between it and his body, stroking across his palm, and he stilled as she drew his hand towards her.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Lucifer.” The sound of his name softly falling from her lips only made the ache in his heart worsen.

Hell, he wanted to drown in her.

He slowly lifted his head and opened his eyes, stared at her where she knelt in front of him, a slight smile curving her shell-pink lips and her eyebrows furrowed, filling her tender gaze with concern.

Concern for him.

He’d had countless women, had used the power of his voice to sway them into looking at him with desire if they feared him or had accepted their natural attraction to him and used it to get what he had wanted from them, but he had never met a woman like Nina.

He had never found a female who looked at him with a mixture of passion and tenderness.

A combination he was coming to crave seeing in her steady gaze.

He had hidden himself from everyone, had shielded himself behind a façade to stop the world from seeing him for what he truly was, because he had feared they wouldn’t understand.

Nina had seen beyond the veil though. He had shown her things that had tested her and she had accepted them, and he wanted to believe that if she saw the darkest part of him that she would understand and accept that too.

Even when he knew she wouldn’t.

And that would crush him.

He bared his short fangs at that thought and shoved back against the feelings invading him.

Emotions were a weakness, one he had worked to eradicate for a reason. He tore his gaze away from her and ground his teeth as he fought to master his own mind, heart and body. He had no use for emotions. They were only a source of pain and suffering. He had shed them and they were no longer welcome. They weren’t needed. He would purge them again. He would remove Nina from his sight, from his castle, and then he would return to the male he was now.

The master of the realm he had created.

The King of Hell.

The soft brush of her fingers across his right cheek undid him, his strength unravelling before he could fully gather it to shield himself against her. He couldn’t stop himself from seeking her gaze.

He couldn’t stop himself from leaning into her tender caress and stealing more from her.

He needed more.

He needed all of her.

He shot his hands out and snagged her waist, dragging her against him and drinking her gasp in a kiss as he crushed her lips with his. She responded instantly, her mouth opening for him and her tongue coming to brush his lips.

Lucifer snarled and deepened the kiss as he wrapped his arms around her waist and rose onto his knees, so she was pinned against his chest. She moaned and he shuddered from the sweet sound, a sudden desperation to draw another one from her filling him. He dropped his hands to her backside and got onto his feet, ripping another startled gasp from her soft lips, one that he devoured as he sought more from her.

Her hands clutched his shoulders, her fingertips pressing into his flesh in the most delicious way as he turned with her and pressed her against the vanity unit. He could feel the desperation flowing through her too, the hunger that she could no longer deny.

The passion neither of them could hold back anymore.

Lucifer set her down on the top of the black unit, prised her knees apart and slid between them. Hell, his already rock hard shaft kicked in his trousers as she pressed forwards, bringing them into contact. She was warm against him, teasing him with her heat and the thought of being inside her. He managed to kiss her for only a handful of seconds before the need to touch her become too fierce, hijacking his fragile sense of control and shattering it.

He grabbed the hem of her short skirt and shoved it upwards, tearing another moan from her as he continued to kiss her. Her nails scored his shoulders as she angled her head and kissed him harder, and it was his turn to gasp as she nipped at his lower lip and sucked on it.

He growled into her mouth, pushed his hands under her skirt and tugged at her stockings, swiftly pulling them down her legs. She wriggled, bringing her knees up between them, her eagerness only driving him on.

Driving him wild.

That realisation hit him with force, knocking him back a step, making him take a look at the woman who sat before him, frantically shoving her own tights down her legs and tossing them away from her.

A woman had never reacted to him the way she did.

A woman had never made him burn with need for her, driven him wild with a hunger to touch and taste her, to make love with her. A woman had never affected him the way Nina did.

He couldn’t get enough of her.

He knew that.

No matter what he did. No matter how many times they made love. Not even if he had forever with her.

He would never get enough of her.